Monsters, Inc. Released

Today in Disney History, Monsters, Inc. was Released.

Monsters, Inc. was released November 2, 2001. This movie is a computer-animated buddy comedy film directed by Pete Docter, produced by Pixar, and released by Walt Disney Pictures. John Lasseter and Andrew Stanton served as executive producers of the film; co-directed by Lee Unkrich and David Silverman and stars the voices of John Goodman, Billy Crystal, Steve Buscemi, James Coburn and Jennifer Tilly. The film centers around on two monsters employed at Monsters, Inc.: top scarer James P. “Sulley” Sullivan (John Goodman) and his one-eyed partner and best friend Mike Wazowski (Billy Crystal). Monsters, Inc. employees generate their city's power by targeting and scaring children, but they are themselves afraid that the children may contaminate them; when one child enters Monstropolis, Mike and Sulley must return her.

Docter began developing the film in 1996 and wrote the story with Jill Culton, Jeff Pidgeon, and Ralph Eggleston. Fellow Pixar director Andrew Stanton wrote the screenplay with screenwriter Daniel Gerson. The characters went through many incarnations over the film's five-year production process. The technical team and animators found new ways to render fur and cloth realistically for the film. Randy Newman, who composed the music for Pixar's three prior films, returned to compose its fourth. Monsters, Inc. was praised by critics and proved to be a major box office success from its release on November 2, 2001, generating over $562 million worldwide. Monsters, Inc. saw a 3D re-release in theaters on December 19, 2012. Its prequel, Monsters University, directed by Dan Scanlon, was released on June 21, 2013.

The idea for Monsters, Inc. started with a lunch in 1994. At this lunch was John Lasseter, Pete Docter, Andrew Stanton and Joe Ranft. One of the ideas that came out of the brainstorming session was a film about monsters. Docter's original idea revolved around a 30-year old man dealing with monsters, which he drew in a book as a child, coming back to bother him as an adult. Each monster represented a fear he had and conquering those fears caused the monsters to eventually disappear. Docter started working on the script in 1996 and with Harley Jessup, Jill Culton and Jeff Pidgeon completed a draft treatment in February 1997. The initial story did not have the character of Mike Wazowski. He wasn't added until a story review meeting between Pixar and Disney in April 1998. The film went into production in 2000.

The release of Monsters, Inc. was almost delayed by a lawsuit brought by Lori Madrid against Pixar, Disney and Chronicle Books. The suit alleged the defendants had stolen her story There's a Boy in My Closet, which she had mailed out in October 1999 to a number of publishers, including Chronicle Books. The plaintiffs had requested a temporary injunction against the release of the film. Judge Clarence Brimmer, Jr. had a hearing on the injunction on November 1, 2001, the day before the film was to be released. He judged against the injunction, and the entire suit was thrown out on June 26, 2002.